2019 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

To increase awareness on financial fraud, and instead of preaching, we decided to entertain our audience by delivering a slightly different communication experience. So, we created our first anti-fraud music video with its original music & lyrics which were specially composed to deliver several dry messages in a lively & melodic manner. Instead of tuning out like they usually do when faced with public awareness messages, our audience tuned in. Millions listened to the song, many people raved about it. And for the fraud cases? Well, let’s just say it went down 20%.

Background.

Despite continuous anti-fraud awareness campaigns, many Saudis still fall victims to financial-fraud schemes as scammers become more relentless, devious and sophisticated. Saudi Banks – a committee of all commercial banks in Saudi – wanted to a catchy awareness campaign that would cut through the clutter of public awareness messages and remind the public that financial fraud is still here, and it comes in many ways. The objective was to effectively deliver a serious message that many opt to ignore.

Describe the creative idea.

As soon as you feel that you are in a suspicious situation similar to some of the most common fraud schemes, make sure to instantly flush the scammers you are dealing with else they will flush your money out of your savings tanks in no time. .

Describe the strategy

Our challenge was to condense several fraud schemes into one awareness campaign. But public awareness is perceived as noise by many, so our strategy was to turn this perceived noise into music to the ears of the public. And we literally did just that. We composed the first anti-fraud music video in the kingdom and launched it on the most contextually relevant entertainment channels from music apps like Anghami, to online social networks including YouTube & Twitter, all the way to Cinema Screens

Describe the execution

We created a music video with several fraud schemes and shot it in a cinematic way where each scene is set in one apartment of a building block. The camera moves from one window-block to the second in a cinematic way until it reaches a huge neon sign on the top of a building block with one single reiterated message: “Throw them (scammers) down the drain before they flush your money”. We then broadcasted our message on several FM radio stations, added it to Aghami music platform where music lovers can tune-in, and posted it as an audio-visual music video on YouTube since it the most widely popular entertainment consumption medium in Saudi. Twitter was used for both still posts and videos while movie theaters were used again for the music video. Overall, the campaign lasted for 2 months, starting Mid-September till Mid-November 2018.

Describe the outcome

The song echoed on radio stations nationwide with 1.3 Million Plays on Anghami, 7.3 Million Plays on YouTube and a total of 87 Million Impressions. Most importantly, Scams dropped by 20.6%, which equates to almost SAR 44 million saved. Our catchy song didn’t just catch attention, it helped Saudis finally tune out scammers.